


La Même Direction

by twobirdsonesong



Series: Prufrock Verse [8]
Category: CrissColfer - Fandom, Glee RPF
Genre: Established Relationship, Ficlet, Fluff, Future Fic, M/M, Post Glee, Prufrock verse, RPF, Sexual Content, Vacation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-11
Updated: 2012-12-11
Packaged: 2017-11-20 21:55:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/590064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twobirdsonesong/pseuds/twobirdsonesong
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Glee is over and there is finally time to take a break.</p><p><a href="http://heavenorspace.tumblr.com/post/31554554066/two-weeks-into-their-vacation-and-darrens-skin">Darren on the beach by heavenorspace</a> by heavenorspace</p>
            </blockquote>





	La Même Direction

**Author's Note:**

> The first of the future fics set in the Prufrock verse. These occur after the events of the drabbles.

It took two days before Chris could fully relax into what is, ostensibly, his first vacation in longer than he cares to remember or think about.

Sure, over the last four years there have been weekends when he didn’t have anything to film or finish and he got to sleep more than six hours in a night, and weeks when he actually left the house and went someplace  _else_ , but they were never true vacations.  He never fully disconnected from the world and its myriad obligations and just let himself be.  He was always on his computer or his phone, working on projects and making deals.  Just because he didn’t have to be  _Kurt_  for a few days didn’t mean he stopped being _Chris_.

But Darren had demanded a vacation, a real vacation.  Just the two of them – no phone calls, no Twitter updates, no emails – and who was Chris to argue when Darren got that  _please let us have this_  look in his eyes.  There still isn’t much that’s just theirs: a bed to replace the sagging, creaking one in Darren’s apartment; a long, scenic drive up to San Francisco for a birthday celebration; a ring and leather cuff that don’t exactly mean what they could.  And Chris’ jaw still clenches when he thinks about the weekend in Boston that wasn’t, but he’s learning to let go of things he can’t go back and change.

_(Il ne passe pas un jour sans que je pense de toi.)_

“A beach, Darren?” Chris had asked, eyebrow cocked sky high when Darren had tilted the laptop towards him to show him the utterly quaint, charmingly romantic little cottage in Corsica.  “Really?”

“Shut up, you’re going to love it.”  Darren had clicked the “payment options” button before Chris had a chance to say anything else.  Not that there was anything else to say – he’d go wherever Darren wanted.  A B&B in Florence run by a sweet old couple who hardly speak English.  A shack in the woods of Canada with no running water nor electricity.  A hostel in Budapest with a dozen other roommates.  Wherever.  But it’s a beach on the Mediterranean Darren wants – needs, really – and so a beach it is.

Chris had just rolled his eyes and slid his fingers through Darren’s hair, gripping the curls and shaking, just a little.  He knew he was going to turn red and freckle all to high heaven under the sun and he honestly hadn’t cared.  The requirements of  _smooth_  and  _pale_  and  _delicate_  were gone, hopefully for good.  If he wanted to laze about on a beach for three weeks, then he was damn well going to do it.  At least the packing would be light.

***

The cottage isn’t so much a cottage as it is a small house.  It has a little library full of books Chris has been meaning to read for years and a huge, sun-drenched bedroom he’s sure they’re going to spend most of their time in.   There’s a living room with tall windows and a wide couch and a bathroom with a tub that’s more than big enough for the both of them.  The kitchen is bright and open and stocked with enough food to last them more than a week, but they’ll have to venture into town at least once or twice before they leave.  The cottage comes with an option for delivery service (there are, in fact, perks to being a star of a wildly successful TV show and the author of bestselling books), but Chris thinks he’ll want to see a little bit of the city at some point.

Maybe he and Darren can find a little café by the shore with candles on the tables and share a bottle of wine, or two, and plates of food with names they can’t pronounce.  Darren will likely hook his foot around Chris’ ankle under the table and his heart will be so fully in his eyes Chris won’t hardly be able to look at him.  Chris is counting on the fact that no one in Bonifacio knows about him or Darren or what they do.  And if they do know, they won’t give enough of a shit to make it an issue.

_(Sans toi je serai perdu.)_

Their rental is quite literally on the beach – Chris opens the back door and his toes are in the sand.

“ _Merde_ ,” Darren exclaims with the kind of simple, full-blown, enthusiastic joy he generally reserves for the season premieres of his favorites shows and backstage passes to concerts. 

Darren had spent the weeks leading up to the trip brushing up on his French, or so he claimed.  Chris is pretty sure all he was doing was memorizing filthy phrases and swear words from the Internet.

That doesn’t mean Chris doesn’t appreciate the linguistic effort.  He does.  Darren knows bits and pieces of too many languages and Chris enjoys the way his tongue shapes and molds around the unfamiliar vowels.  Chris isn’t exactly sure what it means.  But when Darren whimpers  _prends-moi_  into his ear over and over again when they’re twisting slick and wanton against each other and the sheets are halfway to the floor and Chris is sliding achingly slow inside, he’s pretty sure he understands the words all the same. 

The water is clear and beautiful and the sound of the waves crashing on the shore just feet away is as relaxing and soothing as he imagined it would be on the long flight there.  The sun is warm on his face and the breeze smells of sea and salt and something sweetly indefinable that could almost be fruit but isn’t quite.  And standing out on the beach, bare feet sinking into the warm sand, Chris can see just how secluded they are, how private the house truly is.  The next closest property isn’t even within view.  They are as alone as anyone can be anymore.  It’s breathtaking, the mere thought of true privacy.

And it’s not just the physical privacy that makes this the best idea Darren has ever had, although that’s pretty nice too, especially when it means that nowhere is  _off limits_ , no place  _isn’t safe enough_.  Darren comes up behind him when he is washing dishes in the sink, buries his nose in Chris’ hair, and just  _inhales_.  Chris takes Darren’s hand, plays with his fingers, and maps the whirls of his fingerprints and the creases of his palm when they’re sprawled out on a blanket in the sand.  They’re in full view of anyone and everyone who walks by, except there’s no one around at all.  And fuck, but they haven’t had that ever.

It’s the mental isolation from everything else but each other that makes Chris stand up straighter than he has in years and take a deeper breath than ever before.  The phones and laptops are locked away in a closet (only to be brought out in case of an emergency), the TV has been unplugged, and the wireless router turned off.  The only technology they’ve allowed themselves is an iPod and two little speakers, because Darren cannot live without music, especially not for three solid weeks, but even that is hardly used.  Darren brought his guitar and, honestly, Chris prefers the plucking of Darren’s fingers on the strings to anything on either of their playlists.

The first night, when they hadn’t even unpacked at all and dinner was some cheese, crackers, and grapes from the fridge, Darren plays “Come Away with Me” on his battered old guitar while Chris is stretched out, long and languid, on the bed.  The notes are as slow and plaintive as the original, thrumming low and aching through the quiet of the cottage, and his voice, soft and private, shivers across Chris’ bare skin.

 _I did_ , Chris thinks, and his heart aches with it.

_(Je ne peux pas vivre sans toi, mon amour.)_

***

Darren has been naked – blissfully, gloriously, obscenely naked – almost since the moment they arrived in Bonifacio.  At least he’d waited for the plane to land to take his clothes off.  Darren is a California beach bum at heart – forever and always – and the sight of crystal blue water and smooth, untouched sand is a siren call that he can’t resist. 

He’d thrown his duffle bag down (neither of them had brought much of anything), shimmied out of his shirt and shorts, and dived right into the water.  Chris had walked to the back doorway, leaned against the jamb, and just watched as Darren fell back into the sea with opens arms and let wave after wave crash over him.  He was perfect in that moment – wet and sleek and so carefree it broke Chris’ heart a little.  Darren has a million different smiles, but the one on his face just then, when his back first hit the water, was one Chris had never seen before.  He’s thankful that Darren found a reason for that particular smile.

There other benefits that come from Darren’s unabashed nudity.  Two weeks into their vacation and Darren’s skin – all of it – has taken on a deliciously rich golden honey tone that tastes of salt and sand and not a bit like obligation.  His ass is still a little paler than the rest of him, but not by much, not anymore.  And until then, Chris enjoys getting to trace the tan lines on Darren’s thighs and hips with his fingers and tongue.

Chris is thankful there are four or five sets of sheets in the linen closet, because Darren keeps getting Chris back into bed when they’re both wet and messy from the beach and while the scratch of sand against his back and knees is a dangerously erotic sensation  _during_ , it’s just annoying  _after_.

Darren wears shorts, sometimes – little red things that cling to the muscles of his thighs and ass and ride so low Chris can see he isn’t bothering to trim his pubic hair the way he normally does.  Chris takes every opportunity he can to slide his hand up the leg of the shorts or down under the waistband and he shivers at the scratch of coarse hair against his fingertips.  Darren just laughs when he does it, as though he finally got the punch line to a joke told ages ago, but his eyes go dark and inevitably the shorts come off.

He’s only put on a shirt a handful of times – when they went into town to get groceries (Chris has no idea what kind of cheese was in the fridge, but it was fucking delicious and he wanted to get more) and the couple of times they pulled themselves from the bed to go out to dinner or breakfast.  Although the fabric of the shirt was so thin, so clingy that Chris hardly counted it as a shirt at all.

But most of the time, Darren is naked, down to his toes (which he painted bright purple the second night), and so is Chris.  Chris never felt as comfortable in his own skin, his own body, as he does those weeks.  It probably has something to do with the way Darren’s eyes and hands are on his chest and arms and thighs and every inch of him constantly.  It probably also has something to do with the way Darren is half-hard almost all the time.  His cock bounces against his thighs when he walks and while it’s one thing to be told you’re wanted, it’s quite another to see the physical evidence of it.  Darren had just looked down and shrugged, utterly unselfconscious about it, when Chris had finally pointed it out.

If Darren doesn’t care, then Chris certainly doesn’t either.

Chris has spent enough time averting his eyes from Darren’s body over the past few years that he’s going to get his fill while he can.  He lets his eyes linger on the arches of Darren’s feet and the oddly smooth bones of his ankles.  He stares curiously at the prominent veins in Darren’s calves and wonders why he hasn’t really noticed them before.  He follows the increasingly defined musculature of Darren’s arms and he hopes that it isn’t going to become a  _thing_.  Chris  _likes_  the softer lines of Darren’s body: the heavy swell of his ass; the curve of his waist; the roundness of his shoulders.  The cut of Darren’s hips, strangely sharp when the rest of him isn’t, is maybe Chris’ favorite part, but only because of the way his palms fit into the notches.  Or maybe it’s the dip of his spine, less prominent when he’s on his hands and knees and his back is bowing and arching in time with Chris’ rhythm.

There’s something simplistically gorgeous, breathtakingly exquisite about the sight of Darren, dripping wet from the sea and laid out wide across the bed, muscles just visible under his shifting skin, hair an absolute disaster, and so perfectly happy that his eyes disappear into his smile.  He is open and uncomplicated and wholly present and it makes Chris ache with everything he’s kept shoved down deep.  Darren wraps his arms around Chris’ shoulders and pulls him down into the curve of his body and his skin is sun-warm and it makes Chris ache in a completely different way.

_(En ta beauté gît ma mort et ma vie.)_

***

Even though there’s no TV and no Internet, they don’t want for things to do.  There is sleep, of course – that was half the point of the vacation in the first place.  Glorious hours of uninterrupted sleep with Darren close and heavy and breathing deep at his side.  Sometimes, during the first week, Chris would rouse too early – snap awake in expectation of an alarm clock.  He’d blink blearily around the unfamiliar bedroom, confused by the gentle cadence of crashing waves and white sheets that definitely weren’t his, until Darren would take his wrist with soothing fingers and tug him back down into the comforting circle of his arms. He’d tuck his chin over Chris’ shoulder and slide a thigh between his legs and stroke at the smooth skin of his hip until sleep crept over him again.

Chris writes in the notebooks that he brought with him, because even if he doesn’t have his laptop and he’s on vacation, when a story idea comes along, he’s not going to let it slip through his fingers.  It’s an odd feeling to have a pen between his fingers.  He can’t write as fast as he can type, and he thinks even faster than that.  He has to constantly slow himself down because there’s no way his hand can keep up with his brain.  It’s frustrating, at times; Chris feels like he keeps losing his flow and train of thought, but the sight of the words in his very own handwriting is strangely nostalgic.

“It’s because it’s  _you_ , you know?” Darren had said, when Chris tried to explain why it felt so weird.  “It’s not just ones and zeros and a little blinking cursor.  It’s actually  _you_.  Right there.  On that page.  That’s your fucking DNA, man.  And you can’t ever beat that.  No one can ever say,  _hey, Chris didn’t write that_ , because it’s there in your fucking handwriting.  No one else has that but you.  Well, you and maybe a conman, but still.  My point stands.”

Chris had just shaken his head, long used to Darren’s peculiar way of verbalizing things, and dropped a kiss on Darren’s nose before going back to his pen and paper.

He doesn’t mind in the least when Darren pulls a chair up next to him when he’s seated at the kitchen table and reads what he’s working on over his shoulder.  Darren doesn’t say anything, doesn’t offer critique or praise, but the encouragement is there, perfectly loud and obvious, when he presses a warm, sweet kiss to Chris’ bare arm and hums happily.

_(Je t’aimerai pour toute ma vie.)_

Darren teaches Chris how to surf, or rather, he teaches Chris how to stand up on a board and ride baby waves into the shore without falling off.  Chris takes to it easily, naturally, and the joy on Darren’s face when he catches his first wave on his own makes Chris swell with pride and accomplishment.  He loves the pull of his muscles when he paddles out and how graceful he feels balancing on the board.  It’s another thing that’s just theirs to share.

Darren even looks the part of a surf instructor – magnificently tanned with wild, riotous curls that are growing out  _fast_  and a thick beard that hasn’t been trimmed or maintained in the least.

Neither of them bothered to pack a razor, and two days into their vacation Darren’s jaw was darkly shadowed with scruff and Chris’ thighs and neck paid the price.  It’s an easy thing to suffer, especially when Darren takes pity on him and carefully massages aloe into the tender, reddened skin.  Chris gets him back by rubbing his own scratchy chin against the back of Darren’s shoulder as he fucks deeper and deeper into him.  Darren just groans wantonly and arches higher into it.  After a week, Darren’s stubble becomes beard and the hairs are always softer than Chris ever remembers.  He trails his knuckles along the hidden line of Darren’s jaw and rubs his fingertips against the dark hairs on Darren’s cheek and Darren just nuzzles into the caress.  He likes Darren like this – wild and oddly rugged and completely apathetic to his appearance.  It feels like the real Darren.

_(Je serai poète et toi poésie.)_

***

Chris wakes when the sun rises and drifts across his eyes and pulls him from sleep with the kind of gentle peacefulness that an alarm clock never can.  There are windows all along the bedroom walls, but they’re wide open and neither he nor Darren ever closed the curtains.  The morning sun warms his skin and settles down deep into his bones.  He stretches a little and his whole body feels loose and relaxed in a way he doesn’t think it ever has.  He has no idea what day it is, but he thinks it might be Sunday.

It feels wrong, this indolent laziness, and it feels worse that Chris has gotten used to it.  Almost.  He’s never going to have the insane schedule he’d kept because of Glee again (if he can help it), but it’s not going to be like it has these few weeks.

If it’s Sunday, they only have a few days of  _this_  left.  Chris can feel the hours for random naps on the beach and 2am snacks at the kitchen counter and slow, indulgent sex quietly ticking away with the beat of his heart.  And then it’s onto a plane and back to a world of too-loud conversations, too many obligations, and, quite frankly, too many people. Darren has Broadway obligations in a few months and Chris has his next movie.  The easy togetherness of two souls and no one else and nothing more important than that will be gone.

Chris rubs his palm against his suddenly tight chest and stares at the ceiling.

 _(_ _Le prix d’amour, c’est seulement amour_ _.)_  

He knows the moment Darren wakes by the deep inhale of breath and the sudden movement of the body in bed next to him.  Darren flops over, coming to rest half across his torso, and Chris shifts so Darren can more comfortably drape a leg across his thighs.

“I don’t want to go,” Darren breathes, quiet against the curve of Chris’ chest.

“Not even you can afford to stay here forever.”  Chris runs a hand up Darren’s back and tangles his fingers in Darren’s hair.  It’s gotten noticeably longer since they arrived, and Chris hopes the end of Glee means Darren won’t have to cut it so short for a while.  Or shave.  He’s grown rather fond of the grizzled look.

“We could go someplace else.” Darren’s hand slides up his belly and drags a pattern along Chris’ ribs that would tickle if the pressure weren’t so heavy.

“Where?”

“Italy.”  Darren says like he’s been thinking about it for a while.  “Italy is awesome.”

“You’re just saying that because you speak Italian.”  Chris grips at the back of Darren’s neck and squeezes lightly when Darren licks at the prominent tendon of his neck.

“It’s not my fault I’m excessively cultured.”

Chris snorts, but he thinks about a quaint bed and breakfast in Florence or Mantova or wherever they can find that isn’t Los Angeles.  He thinks about another month of just him and Darren and a couple duffle bags and little more.  He thinks of how easy it could actually be to leave everything else behind.

“You’re an excessive overachiever is what you are.”

“We could hop from place to place.”  Darren’s fingers tap lightly against his nipples and down to his bellybutton in time with his words.  “There’s a whole wide world out there, Colfer.  We should see some of it before we get too old and crippled to really enjoy it.”

“I know you look like a vagabond,” Chris says and he can hear the fondness thick in his own voice.  “But I wasn’t expecting you to actually become one.”

It’s enticing though.  He has enough money – they both do – to make it work for a good long while.  And Chris can always write from wherever they are in the world and email the drafts to his editor.  And he knows how quickly Darren would settle back into playing little shows for nothing but tips at cafés in whatever city they’re calling home that month.  The possibility, the very actuality that it could actually work is what makes it so dangerous to even consider.

“Oh har har.” Darren bites down gently on Chris’ collarbone.  “You love my beard.  Don’t deny it.”

“No,” Chris pauses and bites his lip.  There are some things he doesn’t say often because they’re too big, too important for words alone.  But that doesn’t mean they aren’t always there, fluttering – true and insistent – in the hollow of his throat.  “Just you.”

Darren pushes up on his elbow and leans over Chris with one hand still splayed hot and wide across Chris’ belly.  His eyes are greener that morning than Chris has seen them in a long while and the way his pupils expand when he looks at Chris makes Chris’ breath catch in his throat.  Darren stares into his eyes – unmoving, unblinking – for a long moment that should be uncomfortable but isn’t, until the corners of his eyes crinkle and his lips curve in a sweetly heartbreaking smile.  His mouth finds Chris’ with practiced ease and of all the lazy, indulgent, slow-moving kisses they’ve shared, this one is somehow the best.

Darren pulls away with a slick sound that never fails to make Chris’ pulse flutter and he ducks his head to press his lips to Chris’ chest.

“ _Je t’aime pour toujours, mon coeur_ ,” Darren whispers against his skin, right over his heart, and Chris shudders down to his core.

There are some words that everyone knows.

  _Je t’aime._


End file.
